Monday, November 23, 2015

Saturtainment: Saturday Morning Live (1982)

After Match Game ended its CBS and syndicated runs, Gene Rayburn returned home to New York, where he'd begun his career, and returned, if you will, to his Saturday morning roots.

We previously chronicled the lone Goodson-Todman Saturday morning entry that Rayburn hosted, Choose Up Sides, which began his association with NBC. In 1982, Gene was hired by WNEW (now WNYW) to host a magazine show, Saturday Morning Live, which lasted about a shade more than a year before being cancelled, which freed Rayburn to return to Hollywood for not only the ill-fated Match Game-Hollywood Squares Hour, but also an unsold pilot for Australian producer Reg Grundy, Party Line.

This was just something different. Rayburn interviewing guests, and not a single temptation to pull out his "Old Man Periwinkle" persona from Match Game, that I know of. I barely remember this show, much less any memory of seeing it, so, once again, there is no rating. What we can do, however, is offer a sample from a December 1982 show.